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French music streaming service Deezer set to challenge Spotify in the UK

Spotify looks set to face a new competitor, with news that Paris-based music-streaming service Deezer is set to launch in the UK.

As reported by Brand Republic, Deezer is scheduled to launch in the UK in the coming weeks, and the service follows a very similar model to Spotify. It uses a ‘freemium’ ad-based model, with users able to pay for premium services, which remove the adverts and introduces higher-quality audio.

In France, a Premium subscription costs €4.99, whilst a Premium+ subscription costs €9.99. The main differences between the two premium services is that the latter permits offline and mobile access. So it is a very similar model to what Spotify operates in the UK, both in terms of functionality and pricing. However, the exact details of the UK model are yet to be established.

Deezer was launched in August 2007, and it reached agreements with the French copyright societies, major and independent labels between 2007 and 2009. Today, the music-streaming service has 20m users, with 6 million unique visitors per month. This compares to Spotify’s 10m users across the whole of Europe, including France, though this figure should rise sharply following Spotify’s launch in the US three weeks ago.

Deezer has 1.2m subscribers to its Premium service, which is marginally less than Spotify’s 1.6m paying customers, but this is spread across seven countries.

Deezer signed a deal with Orange in France last August which helps bring its Premium service to Orange mobile and Internet customers, and the telecoms giant now has a minority stake in the company. It is not yet known whether Orange will extend this relationship to the UK, but with Spotify recently signing a similar deal with UK ISP Virgin, it would make sense for Deezer to pursue such a partnership.

It’s not entirely clear as of yet how Deezer will differentiate – if at all – from Spotify in the UK. To gain traction, it would likely have to set up some big partnerships with established companies, or ultimately bring something different to the table.

These are exciting times for music fans though, and more competition can only be good for paying customers.